The Company They Keep: C.S.Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community

Diana Pavlac Glyer

Kent State University Press, 293 pages

Diana Pavlac Glyer
Diana Pavlac Glyer
is a professor of English at Azusa Pacific University. She has published extensively
on Lewis, Tolkien, and the Inklings, including contributions
to The C.S. Lewis Readers' Encyclopedia and C.S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy. She
is the recipient of the Wade Center's Clyde S. Kilby Research Grant (1997) and APU's
Chase A. Sawtell Inspirational Teaching Award (2002).

Until I read this book, Humphrey Carpenter's Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R.
Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends, published nearly thirty years ago, was the most comprehensive treatment
of the group that I had ever encountered. It wasn't all that comprehensive, being focused mainly on C.S.
Lewis as the central figure. Though the book was an engaging read, Carpenter tended to summarize and judge the Inklings'
subsidiary writings for the reader, skipping mention of others altogether. Carpenter's main thesis appeared to be that
these extremely intelligent, highly idiosyncratic scholars and writers had little influence on one another; as proof he
quoted from some of their letters, reported statements, and even essays in which they made similar claims. Yet in the
middle of the book he gives us a fictionalized chapter of a "typical" Inklings meeting, in which it's clear that they did
indeed participate in a lively and vigorous way in following one another's work.

Perhaps the sticking point was the word "influence" -- as if a writer's work is somehow diminished if he or she is not
perceived to have completed creative work in total isolation. Beginning with the conviction, as Diana Pavlac Glyer says, "That each
author's work is embedded in the work of others, and each author's life is intertwined with the lives of others," she
proceeds, without the slightest hint of poisonous academic innuendo, to thoroughly dismantle Carpenter's argument.

The level of scholarship in this book is the first thing that impressed me.
Glyer has read everything by, and about, the Inklings. Not just that, she's up on the latest thinking about the
process of writing and collaboration -- not just from a literary view, but from a psychological and sociological
perspective. The authorities upon which she draws range from Harold Bloom's hothouse-fervid The Anxiety of Influence
to Karen Burke LeFevre's Invention as a Social Act.

Against this wider discussion of the process of creation, specifically how writers interact with other writers, whether in
formal groups or informally, Glyer gives us a careful picture of the Inklings' history as a group, then breaks out for
discussion of each member. As one would expect, she pays the closest attention to Tolkien and Lewis, but each gets a
considered look at his place in the Inklings, and his work overall. She then focuses on the Inklings within the
context of LeFevre's four roles of writers in
interaction: as resonators, opponents, editors, and collaborators. Each chapter is followed by superlative notes. I
learned things about the Inklings that I had never known in forty years of familiarity with them, for example the playful
mock-legal battle that Owen Barfield and C.S. Lewis wrote and published (126 copies!) called Mark vs. Tristram. This
sparked from the academic firestorm caused by the appearance of Eugene Vinaver's three volume The Works of
Sir Thomas Malory, specifically the debates about whether or not Malory's rather unsavory biographical details
besmirched his stories about valor and virtue.

Glyer's well-chosen quotes bring these men alive. One gains a sense of their mutual appreciation, the agreeable vigor of
their debate, the passion they brought to the subjects they loved -- and the glee they took in spoofing one another, or literary
and philosophical shibboleths of the day. She not only discusses well-known works, and critiques thereof, but describes
projects abandoned, both collaborative and single.

Given the level of scholarship here, the second impressive thing about this book is the clarity and charm of the prose. A
young scholar new to the Inklings' work could enjoy this book and follow the arguments with as much enthusiasm as those of us
long acquainted with the writers. It would have been so easy to produce an impenetrable tome, given the vastness of the
research -- works cited alone requires twenty pages of tiny print. But Glyer achieves that rarity: an academically rigorous
work that is fun to read.

And that brings me to the third impressive thing, which is the supporting material. Each chapter contains full notes at the
end, every single one shedding extra light on the referenced text or interchange. Then there is a superb Appendix,
beginning with "The Inklings: Their Lives and Works," by David Bratman, the aforementioned "Works Cited," and an Index
that serves as a model of precision and lucidity.

This book is a must for libraries, and for anyone interested in the Inklings and their works.